John Hughes, the state’s chief historian, is putting together a series of in-depth profiles of Washingtonians who made a difference during turbulent times 50 years ago.
“(1968) was such a compelling year in the annals of world history,” said Hughes, a past Daily World editor who now heads up Legacy Washington, an arm of the Washington Secretary of State’s Office. “What we wanted to do was bring it all back home.”
His project, titled “1968: The Year that Rocked Washington,” is focusing on 17 people who were instrumental in the sweeping changes taking place back then, from civil rights leaders to environmentalists to politicians.
One of them is Stuart Elway, a Hoquiam High School graduate who went on to become one of the nation’s leading public opinion researchers. “He was one of the volunteers in a youth movement called Action for Washington, which promoted the candidacy of Art Fletcher.”
Fletcher, too, is being profiled: He ran for lieutenant governor in 1968 and came just short of becoming the first black man to hold a statewide elected position in Washington.
An exhibit comprising all of the profiles with supporting information and artifacts will open at 3 p.m. Sept. 13 at the Capitol Building in Olympia. Among those artifacts wil be scrapbooks donated to the State Archives by former Gov. Dan Evans, who keynoted the Republican National Convention in 1968. He, too is being profiled as part of the project.
“There are a lot of fascinating letters to the governor in Evans’ scrapbooks from everyday people of all ages. Some are ranting, and some are from kids with really wonderfully naive but compelling stories,” said Hughes. “So we’re hoping to set up a station where … kids can write a letter to Gov. (Jay) Inslee and then walk it across the hall and deliver it to the receptionist there. We thought it would be a cool way to bring history full circle 50 years later.”
To read the profiles as they post, visit www.sos.wa.gov/legacy/sixty-eight.
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Profiles and their release dates
June 25: Ralph Munro
July 4: Polly Dyer
July 11: Pat O’Day
July 18: Art Fletcher and Nat & Thelma Jackson
July 22: Tom Robbins
Aug. 1: Karen Fraser
Aug. 8: Wes Uhlman and Jim Ellis
Aug. 15: Norm Dicks and Phyllis Lamphere
Aug. 22: Maxine Mimms
Aug. 29: Bryon Loucks
Sept. 5: Lem Howell and Larry Gossett
Sept. 12: Dan Evans and Stuart Elway
(Courtesy Peter Riches | Museum of Pop Culture) Pat O’Day talks with Jimi Hendrix at Seattle Center Arena in 1968.
Stuart Elway Collection Gov. Dan Evans in his office in Olympia in 1971.
